17 Tishrei 5776
2nd Day Chol HaMoed Sukkot
(Excerpted from "Yankele, Get Up! The House Is On Fire!" - 7 Tishrei 5776)
Q. We're two days before Yom Kippur - how can we 'understand the message' that Hashem wants to give us, and to change our whole life to the right direction?
A. In Israel, we feel problems much more than the Americans, the Jewish Americans. Here, we feel "the sword on our neck", it's not just that there are so many Russians in Syria, and the 'generous' Putin said in his goodness that he's ready to take responsibility for guarding the gas facilities found at sea, he'll protect this whole facility with his soldiers and he'll also want to invest in it. So what does this say? It says that he wants to take over here. And aside from this our government is together with them, but it's also, in general, not our government, as there are Jews who are already seeing and feeling. Because there are those who are simply confused, not paying attention, and now are beginning to feel that it's not just that they erred. And also, there are so many financial problems already, and all over the world - it's all shaking financially, and you don't know how hard it's going to be in the world, how difficult will be the largest financial downfall that ever was in history. So, whoever will approach to do teshuvah in a serious way, we just need to arrive to the beit knesset, or at home for women who don't go, and just open our heart, to speak with our Father, to begin to cry, to allow a possibility, to try and at the moment that we try - Hashem will open our heart for us, and then we will cry, and we will feel how the tears bring down the barriers, dissolve the barriers, and then a person can come very close to HKB"H. And He will give us this possibility this coming Yom Kippur. And by next Yom Kippur - the world will be turned upside down, it will be turned completely upside down, something else. And not by next Yom Kippur, by Kislev - let's say, I don't know exactly when, but it's another little bitty bit. It won't take much time. And we won't have many opportunities to do teshuvah like this. One of the possibilities - it's now on Yom Kippur. Afterwards, there will also be times that Hashem will accept it, but it appears to me that for the majority it's until Hoshanah Rabbah.
